I'm sure that it won't be a pleasant thought for some (hi, Bud) that I'm thinking of tossing PageCat.
It was a good project while it lasted. In fact, it has opened my eyes in certain ways that would not have been possible a few years ago. It has served me well, and continues to serve me right now as I write this.
But I have some problems with it, and I want to get them out in the open so that I can get your opinions on them. Yes, you who are reading this. I want your opinion.
I don't know if you realize what all goes on behind the scenes here at Asymptomatic. PageCat is the software I've written to handle the publishing aspect of the site. Basically, I log in to PageCat, type my article, push a couple of buttons and Bang! The content is online.
Everything appears in the right places. Links are automatically updated. It's very cool. It's very easy.
But certain needs have recently come to my attention. Without getting into too much detail (and those of you who noticed the post I quickly revoked yesterday might know better what I'm talking about), this whole blogging thing isn't working for me like it used to.
There are some features I need to make things work right, and I don't know that I want to devote the time into getting PageCat to do it, or that I'll ever have the time I need to properly devote to do it.
Without making any changes in my available options, my time allows me to either sit here and write with this crippled software, or rewrite the crippled software and put the writing aside until the software is complete. Unfortunately for PageCat, as time passes, I'm becoming more dependant on the writing than I am the coding.
One of the big mistakes I've made over the past, say, five years, is that I've not involved myself with other people. Look at Expression Engine. (This thing will become a theme in a moment.) Expression Engine is basically PageCat, finished. Seriously. I started writing PageCat long before they started with pMachine, and what do I have to show for it?
I had varying accounts of whether I could succeed in selling my PageCat software. I didn't try very hard. I should have quit Kruse when I started PageCat, and I'd be making real money today working from home. Instead, I'm blogging with a tool I wrote myself, but a tool that doesn't hold a candle to its alter-ego.
I started making revisions in PageCat to accomodate FireFox. The changes are many and extensive. I just don't feel that I'll ever be able to complete it, even if the new interface does look pretty nice.
What else do I want from my blogging tool besides compatibility? Here's a short list:
- Cross-host multi-blogs.
- Automatic image gallery with comments.
- Working anonymous comment system with bulletin board features.
- Member-only posts/sections.
- Categories.
- Trackback and pingback.
- All RSS versions and Atom.
- Personalization features.
- Desktop and Palm-based blog editor.
- Not to have to code every change myself.
One thing that seems very important to me at this point is to have a central place to post new entries, but have it split them to two or more different domains so that I could post family-related pictures, stories, and stuff here, and post other things in other places.
I would also like to give friends access to the administration system so that they could post their own stuff, yet still retain an editing capability over the whole thing for myself. I don't know who would contribute, since none of these "friends" even regularly read this blog, but I'm optimistic. (Maybe since I quoted the word friends back there, I'll get guff from the ones who read, and I'll be able to identify them?)
What's the big deal, really? Well, I've been lamenting the readership here, which is mostly looking for Janet Jackson Superbowl pictures, advice on Global Connections, or the download files for ABC Torrent. The problem is that I shouldn't.
What I need is to segregate what I like to talk about from what the reader want to read. Here's the paradox: People don't want to read what I want to write casually, yet I want people to come to read what I have to write. It seems that I need to change my writing a little, and that will be difficult considering that one of the primary reasons that this site exists is to support my writing habit. (Things have gotten somewhat out of control in that regard, too.)
I need to start writing in shorter, more-interesting blurbs. I need to write about ephemeral things that have specific interest to only my readers. I need to write things that would not be written in other places. You get the idea.
I think I will take my blogging books with me this weekend to Johsntown (along with my school stuff - yeah, yeah) and see if I can make any sense of what I'm supposed to be doing. I want to write a good blog. I want something that I like to write and people like to read, and if I have to have two separate places to keep it all, then so be it.
